This annotated bibliography is reformatted and customized by the Center for Positive Practices. Some of the authors featured on this page include Michael O. Sibley, Connie Verhagen, Brinton S. Ramsey, Elfrieda H. Hiebert, Joe Crawford, Ulrich Boser, David L Silvernail, Brentt Brown, Jui Shrestha, and Dean Bonner.
(2010). Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress. Volume 10, Number 23. "Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Getting Back to Average: American Fifteen-Year-Olds Rank 14th in Reading, 17th in Science, and 25th in Mathematics, According to Latest PISA Results; (2) "A First Look": New Report Finds Many Students Lack Skills Outlined in Common Core State Standards; and (3) "The Fiscal Survey of States": Despite Small Increases in State Revenues, Most States Still Facing Significant Budget Gaps, Report Finds. [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Public Education, Economics Education, Educational Finance
(2014). Creating CCSS-Aligned Curriculum in Grades 9-12, Journal for Leadership and Instruction. In Joe Crawford's last two articles, he examined the process of building standards-based curriculum documents to drive instruction in the K-8 environment. Continuing with this theme, this article explores "closing the loop" and following this work into the high school experience. There is one huge difference in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) at the high school level. The CCSS are no longer organized by distinct grade level; the CCSS are now presented as high school (9-12) standards. Because of the various and sundry organizational patterns in high school math course work (and in ELA, for that matter), it is now important for the entire high school math (and ELA) department to work together to ensure adequate learning opportunities across the entire 9-12 spectrum of high school course work. The CCSS must be parsed out over the entire 9-12 math academic experience and spread among the various courses offered and experienced by students. This article takes the reader through the steps of a high school's overall study/review of Domains and standards in those Domains and deciding which specific high school courses will address which specific Domains and standards, using the Geometry Domain as an example. Then, it discusses the actual process of developing the end-of-year (Local CCS Standards or Priority Standards) and within-year (Instructional Objectives) expectations, continuing with the Geometry Domain example. The process as detailed in the article allows the reader to create useable, aligned, and articulated learning expectations that are proven to produce meaningful improvements in student performance. [More] Descriptors: Common Core State Standards, Secondary Education, Grade 9, Grade 10
(2014). Californians & Education. PPIC Statewide Survey, Public Policy Institute of California. The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) Statewide Survey provides policymakers, the media, and the public with objective, advocacy-free information on the perceptions, opinions, and public policy preferences of California residents. This is the 141st PPIC Statewide Survey in a series that was inaugurated in April 1998 and has generated a database of responses from more than 295,000 Californians. The current survey seeks to inform state policymakers, encourage discussion, and raise public awareness about K-12 public education issues. It is the 10th annual PPIC Statewide Survey on K-12 education since 2005. This report presents the responses of 1,702 California adults on the following issues: (1) Policy preferences, including attitudes toward the Common Core State Standards (awareness, overall support, support for additional implementation funding, anticipated outcomes, concerns about teacher preparation, and parents' knowledge); the Local Control Funding Formula (awareness, overall support, confidence in local districts, anticipated outcomes, and parental involvement); and preschool education, including support for state funding of preschool for all four-year-olds; (2) Perceptions and attitudes, including approval ratings of the governor and legislature, overall and on K-12 education; California's spending and test scores compared with those of other states; concerns about inequities; attitudes toward college and career preparation; perceptions of educational quality, the state budget situation, and funding levels at local schools; ways to raise local revenues; and the importance of gubernatorial candidates' positions on education; (3) Time trends and the extent to which Californians may differ in their perceptions, attitudes, and preferences based on their political party affiliation, likelihood of voting, region of residence, race/ethnicity, whether they have children attending a California public school, and other demographics. [More] Descriptors: State Surveys, Public Opinion, Public Education, Elementary Secondary Education
(2014). Pathways to Mathematics College Readiness in Maine, Center for Education Policy, Applied Research, and Evaluation. The goal of this study was to examine the pathways to being college ready in mathematics. Students who enter high school already having demonstrated mathematics proficiency on a standardized test in the 8th grade have already taken a significant step towards being college ready. The best scenario is to enter high school proficient in mathematics and having already completed Algebra I, then to complete at least Algebra II and Calculus before graduating from high school. Students completing this pathway are virtually guaranteed to be college ready in mathematics. There also is an alternative path to being college ready. Being proficient entering high school, and then completing a course sequence that includes at least Algebra I, Algebra II, and pre-Calculus significantly increased students' chances of being college ready in mathematics. Thus, it appears 8th grade proficiency is key to becoming college ready in mathematics. It affords opportunities for students to complete Algebra I before entering high school and then take higher level mathematics courses in high school. Alternatively, even if students wait to take Algebra I in high school, if they are proficient and complete at least pre-Calculus, they have a high likelihood of being college ready. The key is 8th grade mathematics proficiency. It opens the gate to a successful high school and college experience in mathematics. The typical sequence of courses completed by most high school students is Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II. The Common Core State Standards Initiative (2012) has endorsed this three course sequence as preparing students for college. However, the evidence from this study does not support this endorsement. Completing Geometry does not substantially ensure college readiness, nor does completing Algebra II ensure college readiness. Students also need to successfully complete either a pre-Calculus or Calculus course in high school to be college ready. [More] Descriptors: College Readiness, College Mathematics, High School Students, Mathematics Skills
(2014). 2014 Schooling in America Survey: Perspectives on School Choice, Common Core, and Standardized Testing. Polling Paper No. 20, Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. The "Schooling in America Survey" is an annual project, commissioned by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice and conducted by Braun Research, Inc. (BRI). The purpose of the project is to measure public opinion–and in some cases awareness or knowledge–on a range of K-12 education topics and reforms. The author and his colleagues report response levels, differences, and intensities for the country, four major regions, and demographic groups. These annual snapshots consider the perceived direction of American K-12 education; the federal government's performance in K-12 education; education spending; grades and preferences for different types of schools; and school choice topics addressing charter schools, vouchers, education savings accounts, and tax-credit scholarships. This report contains responses to two sets of questions with a special focus on standardized testing and the Common Core State Standards, and compares split-sample responses on questions exploring public spending on education; perceptions of political party support for school choice policies; test-based accountability; and the development and implementation of academic standards. All are salient issues in state politics and reflect undercurrents in education policy discussions. This polling paper has four sections: (1) a summary of findings; (2) "Survey Snapshots," which offers charts highlighting the core findings of the project; (3) the survey's methodology, which summarizes response statistics, and presents additional technical information on call dispositions for landline and cell phone interviews; and (4) the survey questions and results ("topline numbers"), allowing the reader to follow the interview as it was conducted, with respect to question wording and ordering. [More] Descriptors: School Choice, Common Core State Standards, Standardized Tests, Public Opinion
(2011). Comparison of Virginia's 2009 Mathematics Standards of Learning with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. This first draft of the "Comparison of Virginia's 2009 Mathematics Standards of Learning (SOL) with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for Mathematics" provides a side-by-side overview demonstrating how the 2009 Mathematics SOL are aligned to the CCSS. The comparison was made using Virginia's complete standards program for supporting teaching and learning in the Commonwealth's public schools and school divisions, including both the 2009 "Mathematics Standards of Learning" and the "Curriculum Framework for 2009 Mathematics Standards of Learning." The Curriculum Framework is essential to any comparison conducted between the CCSS and the Mathematics SOL since it "unpacks" the SOL, providing detail that complements the standards. The CCSS are presented in the left column of the table and are organized using the CCSS format. Headings and subheadings are those used in the CCSS. Using the format provided in the CCSS, the comparison is completed by individual grade levels in kindergarten through grade 8 and by conceptual categories in grades 9-12. As the SOL and Curriculum Framework components were reviewed and aligned to the CCSS, they were placed in the right column of the table adjacent to the similar standard in the CCSS. SOL bullets correlated to the CCSS are indicated with bold print. SOL listed as correlated to CCSS content may include correlations from the "Curriculum Framework for 2009 Mathematics Standards of Learning" and are denoted with "CF" following the SOL number (e.g., 7.4 CF). The CCSS conceptual categories for high school specify content that all students should learn in order to be college and career ready. In addition, the CCSS include content, indicated with "(+)", that students should learn in order to take advanced courses such as calculus, advanced statistics, or discrete mathematics. A subset of the CCSS considered modeling standards are marked with a star symbol. Both the CCSS for Mathematics and Virginia's Mathematics SOL are rigorous and provide a detailed account of mathematics expectations for student learning and understanding. The content topics covered in both documents are clearly defined and sequential. By the time students have progressed into high school mathematics content through the CCSS or SOL, they have received at least the same mathematical content delivered through different learning progressions. Virginia's SOL are equal to or in some instances more rigorous in content and scope than the CCSS. While learning progressions may not completely mirror one another, the content from both is aligned. Virginia's teachers value content standards that do not dictate methodology, as reflected in the public comment provided during the 2009 Mathematics SOL revision process. The CCSS include "content" standards that dictate methodology and/or applications and extensions of content that teacher professionals should determine based on the learning needs of their students. [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Core Curriculum, Alignment (Education), Academic Standards
(2014). Common Core in the Districts: An Early Look at Early Implementers, Thomas B. Fordham Institute. The last year has found critics and advocates of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) duking it out in the political arena. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an ardent supporter of high standards for some seventeen years, has recently lurched out of the safe haven of think tankery and into the boxing ring. Yet wherever one stands on the merits of the Common Core, one thing is certain–all the political posturing and mudslinging distract attention and energy from the crucial work of implementation. Like it or not, the Common Core State Standards are in place in forty-five states and the District of Columbia–and in many of those jurisdictions, educators are hard at work trying to operationalize them in their schools and classrooms. How's it going so far? In a word: bumpy. A handful of studies–surveys of state education officials, mostly–paint a discouraging picture. Clearly, lots more monitoring and evaluating lies ahead. Yet one important inquiry that's been lacking–until now–is an in-depth examination of real educators in real districts as they earnestly attempt to put the CCSS into practice. So, the authors set out to find those instructors and the districts in which they teach. Their goal was to peer into this void via an up-close look at district-level, school-level, and classroom-level implementation in a handful of jurisdictions. They sought out "early implementer" districts that have moved with fair speed to implement the new academic standards–most of them well ahead of their own state timelines for doing so–in the hope that they would reveal lessons worth sharing with the broader field. To conduct the study, the authors teamed up with Education First, a consulting firm founded by standards-reform veteran Jennifer Vranek, who a decade earlier had herself launched Achieve's American Diploma Project–which is often viewed as the precursor to the Common Core standards. With plenty of feedback from additional experts, including some at Fordham, the team identified four early implementer districts that appeared worthy of scrutiny: (1) Kenton County (KY); (2) Metro Nashville (TN); (3) Illinois's School District 54 (Schaumburg and vicinity); and (4) Washoe County (Reno, NV). In each district, the analysts probed five areas that are key to smooth implementation of any standards-based reform: communications, leadership, curricular materials, professional development, and assessment and accountability. In Part One, the report is organized by these categories, offering a rationale for why each matters for effective transition to the new standards, a brief description of the state of Common Core implementation in the respective area, and the major themes and findings that crosscut these four early implementers. In Part Two, the authors offer some advice, cautions, and recommendations for the field based on their observations in the districts that were assessed. Part Three includes individual case studies for each of the four districts, explaining their approach and detailing their Common Core implementation efforts in depth. Two appendices include: (1) Methodology; and (2) The Depth of the Change: What's Different under the Common Core? [Foreword and Summary by Amber M. Northern and Michael J. Petrilli.] [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Academic Standards, Feedback (Response), Teachers
(2014). Getting to the Core: How Early Implementers Are Approaching the Common Core in California, Policy Analysis for California Education, PACE. California has embarked on a major new wave of curriculum reform with the adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the new English Language Development (ELD) standards, and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The adoption of the CCSS builds a legacy of standards-based education reform in California that began with the development of curriculum frameworks in the 1980s and continued with the adoption of the California State Standards and the approval of the Public School Accountability Act. The environment for implementation of the CCSS has improved dramatically since the new standards were adopted in 2010. The state education budget is growing rather than shrinking. The state has reiterated its commitment to CCSS and expanded the scope of the statewide pilot of the new Smarter Balanced (SBAC) assessments, and provided earmarked funding to support CCSS implementation. Work on new curriculum frameworks is nearing completion, which means that districts will soon have a list of state endorsed instructional materials to choose from. Each of these changes present new opportunities and challenges for districts as they design and implement a plan for CCSS. This report is intended to inform both practitioners and policy makers about the wide variety of CCSS implementation strategies that California school districts are choosing. The report does not aim to evaluate these strategies, or paint a picture of how the average school district in California is responding to the challenge of CCSS implementation. Instead it offers an in-depth look at a small group of early implementers of CCSS, with the goal of chronicling the choices these pathfinders have made, identifying lessons they believe they have learned, and mapping potential pitfalls that other districts may seek to avoid. The following appendices are included: (1) District Profiles; and (2) Interview Guide. [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Program Implementation, Educational Practices, Educational Strategies
(2010). Alabama Education News. Volume 33, Number 7, Alabama Department of Education. "Alabama Education News" is published monthly except for June, July, and December by the Alabama Department of Education. This publication, authorized by Section 16-2-4 of the "Code of Alabama", as recompiled in 1975, is a public service of the Alabama Department of Education designed to inform citizens and educators about programs and goals of public education in Alabama. This issue contains the following articles: (1) Alabama's Reading Scores Improve; (2) K-12 Common Core State Standards Released; (3) A+ College Ready Expands Advanced Placement; (4) Teacher of the Year Finalists Announced; (5) Counting on Every Student Being a High School Graduate; and (6) Alabama Engineering Academy Highlighted as one of "America's Best Programs". Regular features include: (1) Good News in Alabama Schools; (2) Awards, Opportunities, and Professional Development; (3) Calendar; and (4) Teacher of the Month. [More] Descriptors: Advanced Placement, Elementary Secondary Education, Educational Objectives, State Standards
(2014). The Power of the Pygmalion Effect: Teachers' Expectations Strongly Predict College Completion, Center for American Progress. People do better when more is expected of them. In education circles, this is called the Pygmalion Effect. It has been demonstrated in study after study, and the results can sometimes be quite significant. In one research project, for instance, teacher expectations of a pre-schooler's ability was a robust predictor of the child's high school GPA. Raising student expectations has been in the news a lot recently as part of a larger conversation about improving learning outcomes. Most notably, a group of states have developed the Common Core State Standards, which go a long way toward establishing higher standards by setting out what students should know and be able to accomplish in reading and math. More than 40 states have adopted the standards so far. Recently, however, there has been a great deal of political pushback against them; a number of states, including Oklahoma, recently abandoned the reform effort. To look at the issue of expectations more closely, researchers analyzed the National Center for Education Statistics' Education Longitudinal Study, or ELS, which followed the progression of a nationally representative sample of 10th grade students from 2002 to 2012. The ELS has a longitudinal design, which allows researchers to link teacher expectations to individual student data collected up to 10 years later. For some findings, researchers conducted a logistic regression of students' actual academic outcomes on teachers' expectations. In other areas, researchers reported simple frequencies. The study showed the following: (1) High school students whose teachers have higher expectations about their future success are far more likely to graduate from college; (2) Secondary teachers have lower expectations for students of color and students from disadvantaged backgrounds; and (3) College-preparation programs and other factors that support higher expectations are significant predictors of college graduation rates. These findings build on a large body of research on the power of expectations. [More] Descriptors: Teacher Expectations of Students, Common Core State Standards, Educational Change, Resistance to Change
(2012). 12 for 2012: Issues to Move Education Forward in 2012, Education Commission of the States (NJ3). This publication is an ECS (Education Commission of the States) "read of the field," built on its scrutiny of new reports and research, and its analysis of emerging drivers of change. This publication is intended to stimulate thinking around how best to craft the "2.0" of powerful policy across the states. The 12 policy areas highlighted in this report share certain common themes: (1) P-20 in nature: Holding implications for the way individuals do business across the education spectrum, from the early years through postsecondary; (2) High-leverage; and (3) Related to one another: Success in addressing issues in one area (i.e., Common Core State Standards implementation) hold implications for success in other areas (i.e., teacher evaluation). For each of the 12 issues identified, four common threads are addressed: (1) Potential power: Are there wide-reaching implications for getting state-level results?; (2) Biggest challenges; (3) Positive signs; and (4) Further reading. Contents of this publication include: (1) Pre-K: Expanding the focus to P-3 (Karen Schimke and Jennifer Dounay Zinth); (2) K-12 finance: Creating and maintaining efficiency and financial accountability without lowering expectations (Jennifer Dounay Zinth and Mike Griffith); (3) Blended learning: Getting moving. Getting it right. (Jennifer Dounay Zinth); (4) Common Core State Standards: From talking to doing (Jennifer Dounay Zinth); (5) Developing civic engagement in PK-12: State action in the absence of federal funding (Paul Baumann); (6) Teaching quality: Fasten your seatbelts! (Jennifer Dounay Zinth); (7) Rural: Enhancing the potential of education in rural America (Jennifer Dounay Zinth); (8) Data: Access to what teachers and leaders need to improve student outcomes (and the skills to use it) (Jennifer Dounay Zinth); (9) Individualized instruction: Faster. Cheaper. Smarter (Jennifer Dounay Zinth); (10) Performance funding: Building a model without a blueprint? (Matthew Smith); (11) Remedial education: We know more now than we ever have (Matthew Smith); and (12) Credentials of value: Some are better than others (Matthew Smith). Individual articles contain endnotes. [More] [More] Descriptors: Blended Learning, State Action, State Standards, Individualized Instruction
(2012). Text Complexity: School Librarians Have a Role, School Library Monthly. The gap between the reading and writing skills of high school graduates and the demands of freshman college coursework and employers was one of the greatest concerns when the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers were developing the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (CCSS-ELA). A particular concern was that many high school graduates could not read and comprehend the texts required to learn and perform, whether in coursework or the workplace. The authors of the Common Core State Standards were faced with the challenge of addressing this gap in a concrete and vivid way. They, along with the many teachers, curriculum developers, and others wanted a way to describe a set of goals for students in terms of the degree of difficulty and sophistication of the texts they should learn to comprehend by the end of their K-12 years. However, there was great concern that the best known, most widely used traditional quantitative tools for measuring and describing the degree of difficulty of a given text were inadequate in the K-12 instructional environment. In response, the authors developed the concept of "text complexity." Text complexity includes both the traditional quantitative measures of readability or text difficulty, but also adds two other equally important or even more significant approaches to evaluating the level and appropriateness of a given text for use in K-12 instruction. The two additional parts of the Standards' model of text complexity are "qualitative measures of text complexity" and "reader and task considerations." The sophisticated and deep knowledge found in texts, books, and other resources require children to effectively apply the CCSS-ELA model of text complexity. It is because of these complex demands of CCSS-ELA that school librarians are absolutely essential to the successful selection of appropriate texts. State departments of education, district superintendents, curriculum developers, principals, and teachers should recognize this need, and school librarians have an opportunity to rise to the challenge. [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Writing Skills, High School Graduates, Elementary Secondary Education
(2010). Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress. Volume 10, Number 15. "Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) ESEA [Elementary and Secondary Education Act], Right Away!: Voters Want Federal Action on High School Reform, According to New National Poll; (2) Striking a Balance: House Appropriations Subcommittee Falls Short of President Obama's Education Funding Goal; (3) "The State of State Standards–and the Common Core": Common Core State Standards Are Stronger than Current Standards in Three Quarters of States, New Report Finds; and (4) "Learning from Leadership": New Report Finds Effective School Leadership Is Strongly Connected to Student Achievement. [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Instructional Leadership, Public Education, Newsletters
(2012). Building the Foundation: A Suggested Progression of Sub-Skills to Achieve the Reading Standards–Foundational Skills in the Common Core State Standards, Center on Instruction. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) initiative is a state-led effort that establishes a set of clear educational standards for English language arts and mathematics that states can voluntarily adopt. The standards have been informed by the best available evidence and the highest standards across the country and the world. They have been designed by a diverse group of teachers, experts, parents, and school administrators. The CCSS includes the Reading Standards: Foundational Skills (K-5). These standards foster students' understanding and working knowledge of the concepts of print, the alphabetic principle, and other basic conventions of the English writing system. These foundational skills do not represent an endpoint–they are necessary and important components of an effective, comprehensive reading program designed to develop proficient readers who comprehend texts across a range of types and disciplines (CCSS, 2010).This document serves (a) literacy leaders at the regional level who support state, district, and school administrators and (b) teachers who seek to know and understand the sub-skills, or prerequisites, students need to achieve each of the Foundational Skills (K-5) in the Common Core State Reading Standards. The foundational skills define end-of-year expectations. As with the other standards, the authors have been written this way intentionally to allow teachers, curriculum developers, and states to determine how to meet these expectations. The foundational skills describe the concepts children must acquire to become proficient in decoding text. Researchers have determined a general progression of how children develop these skills (Vandervelden & Siegel, 1995; Adams, 1996; Ehri, 1998; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000). The authors have based this document on an analysis that determined the "sub-skills" students need to achieve each foundational skill. In this document, they define a "sub-skill" as a concept or behavior in which a student needs to be proficient to master the foundational skill. They also include "instructional examples" aligned to the "sub-skills". The "instructional examples" give teachers samples of activity types that facilitate acquisition of the "sub-skills", which can lead to attainment of the Common Core State Standards. This document contains five sections. Each section targets one grade level and includes the following four areas of reading: Print Concepts, Phonological Awareness, Phonics and Word Recognition, and Fluency. Each section centers on one grade level, but the authors have included up to three grade levels on each chart so that educators have access to the "sub-skills" to inform instruction for students who are either struggling and need extra support or intervention, or for students performing above grade level expectations and require enrichment. This also allows a teacher to see which skills should have been mastered in the previous year and what students are preparing for in the upcoming years. [More] Descriptors: Academic Standards, State Standards, Reading Skills, Basic Skills
(2013). Upping the Ante of Text Complexity in the Common Core State Standards: Examining Its Potential Impact on Young Readers, Educational Researcher. The Common Core Standards for the English Language Arts (CCSS) provide explicit guidelines matching grade-level bands (e.g., 2-3, 4-5) with targeted text complexity levels. The CCSS staircase accelerates text expectations for students across Grades 2-12 in order to close a gap in the complexity of texts typically used in high school and those of college and career. The first step of the band at second and third grades is examined because it marks the entry into the staircase and a critical developmental juncture. In this article, we examine the theoretical and empirical support for three assumptions that underlie the acceleration of text complexity in Grades 2-3. Then we identify patterns in American reading achievement and instruction to illustrate the potential and far-reaching consequences of an increase in the first step of the CCSS staircase. [More] Descriptors: Core Curriculum, State Standards, Alignment (Education), Grade 2